My last post may have caused some confusion regarding the timeliness of teaching some truths. Suffice to say, all theology that helps us understand God biblically (in this case, his sovereignty), may help us through hard times when we know it going in, but may prove an untimely truth, misunderstood when first received in certain situations.
Likewise, sin’s role in suffering proceeds from Eden, and may have only secondary (or further removed) causality in our suffering. In John 9:2-3 the disciples inquired whether a man was blind for his sin or for his parents’. Jesus replied, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Sin wasn’t causative, but had the fall not happened, blindness wouldn’t be an issue. When sin’s role is more apparent in suffering, a comforter should tread carefully.
Pondering suffering and sovereignty in my own life, I find this helpful: Consider the child who cuts her foot on a rusty nail. Already suffering a cut, her parents take her to the doctor, who’ll add stitches and shots to her misery. From the child’s perspective, subjecting her to more pain seems cruel and uncaring. From the parent’s perspective, it’s love for the child and purposeful for her long-term good.
Similarly, when sin is at issue (in the following illustration, disobedience), consider finding your child playing in the road against your strongest commands. Depending on traffic, you might rush to grab him by the arm, yanking him to safety before giving them a good swat on the bottom. So, in this case, you clearly haven’t been able to make him understand actual danger (traffic), so you give him a memorable, alternate incentive (punishment) to obey you in an effort to keep him from true harm.
These parents understand this suffering, but look past it for the child’s welfare.
On the “why” of evil and suffering, consider this small child, yourself and an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, creator God. Where do you suppose is the larger gap in understanding? Between you and the child, who we’ve already determined is unable to grasp parental wisdom, or between you and God? Clearly, if we have wisdom over and purpose in some instances of a child’s suffering, God has greater wisdom and purpose in our own.
Both of these illustrations convey to me that God has purposes in whatever befalls us. For the believer it’s correction, preparatory training, reparatory work, or some combination of all of these – done in love. Unlike some Christian pundits, I’m not to venture God’s specific purpose for believers or others, in any evil and suffering large or small. Further, since I’m not the center of the universe, my own suffering may simply play into (and most certainly does) a complexity of interrelated stories concerning those around me. May my witness reflect his perfect purpose over my present pain.
In 2 Corinthians 4:8-12, Paul poetically enumerates his great suffering for Christ, before finishing (17-18): “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
God opposes evil (Habakkuk 1:13), but has power over it and purpose in it we cannot see. In fact, he uses it and suffering for our collective, eventual good (Romans 8:28). If a sparrow’s demise doesn’t escape him (Matthew 10:29), how close he must hold the suffering!